ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Effective cost per action

Effective cost per action, or eCPA for short, is like counting the number of steps you take to buy some candy. Imagine if you had a piggy bank with only a few coins in it, and you wanted to buy some candy. You might have to walk to the store, pick out the candy, and pay the cashier with your coins. Each step of the process costs you something, whether it’s time or money.

In the world of online advertising, eCPA is a way to measure how much it costs to get someone to take a specific action, such as clicking on an ad, filling out a form, or making a purchase. Advertisers want to know how much they are spending to get a user to complete a desired action, so they can make sure they are getting a good return on their investment.

To calculate eCPA, we need to add up all the costs associated with getting a user to complete the desired action. For example, if an advertiser spends $100 on ads and gets 10 people to click on those ads, that’s a cost of $10 per click. If out of those 10 clicks, 3 people fill out a form on the advertiser’s website, the cost per form fill is $33.33 (since $100/3 = $33.33).

Calculating eCPA allows advertisers to compare the effectiveness of different campaigns or channels. For example, if an advertiser is running ads on two different websites and one is generating a lower eCPA, they may choose to allocate more of their budget to that website to optimize their ad spend.

In summary, effective cost per action is a way to measure the cost of each step it takes to get someone to complete a desired action, and it helps advertisers optimize their ad spend to get the biggest bang for their buck.